SOURCE: Stevens, Mark. Review of The World according to Garp, by John Irving. National Review 31, no. 9 (2 March 1979): 313.

In the following review, Stevens offers a positive assessment of The World according to Garp, commenting that the novel is an imaginative and “richly comic” satire.

The World According to Garp, is the work of an extravagant imagination. It is also richly comic, its dialogue and scenes sometimes filled with a riotous energy worthy of the Marx Brothers. Yet for all its comic affection (and Irving does care about his characters), The World According to Garp is no slapstick celebration. Irving's special gift is narration, not style; the story moves along captivatingly despite some unremarkable language. T. S. Garp is the son of a compassionate nurse and a terminally ill tail-gunner. Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, writes a book which makes her a feminist heroine, a kind of Betty Friedan in white...